Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Sucking it up....

i'm really not sure what is going on, but my blue water barrel has been a watering hole in the past few days... hoards of bees, several different species, and wasps have been drinking madly...i've observed the bee 'dance' they do to let the rest of the gang in on their findings... odd stuff i say... if anyone can tell me why the odd behaviour please do tell!!!

sooooo more buggy events... did i ever mention how much i love insects ;)

this wee jumping spider, species unknown, found lunch on the windowsill... i didn't have my camera handy on viewing the initial pounce but did get it out for the remainder of the 'event'... i must say i did feel badly for the fly... hard way to die...

one has to admire the tenacity of the spider to hang on to his dinner...i removed spider and fly from windowsill to outdoors to take 'better' pics... moved them around several times (for better lighting) and not once did the spider let go... i guess lunch was tasty!

outside in the garden i didn't have my camera but there was a difficult drama going on, a poor honey bee and one very determined red/black ant...in the hopes of saving the bee i had to detach the ant from the bee several times, mr/ms ant just came coming back for more.. finally with a dry stalk of grass and a good flick the ant went for a flight of his own.... as for the bee.... i put him/her in my garden in what i hoped was a safe spot... at least for a short while!

Your as bad as we are saving bugs like that. Almost every morning I have to save a spider out of the bathtub where it has managed to trap itself during the night.

As to the bees, here is something I noticed online - "In addition to food, honey bees gather water for use in cooling the inside of the nest on hot days. They also use water to dilute the honey when they feed it to the larvae." - http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/insects/ahb/inf4.html

thanks Out on the prairie and Mr. H perhaps the bee behaviour isn't so strange after all.. i've just never noticed! since the weather has cooled dramatically i don't think it's to cool their hives, but working hard yes, the fall has arrived already ..... sighhhhhh perhaps this winter i'll read up more on bees... son in law has expressed an interest in a few hives... hmmmm :D

A message from your sponsor... (ahem) not really......

but a message from my heart... if from this blog, only one person garners information and utilizes it in their lives, then i've accomplished what i wished....in our rush to become 'high tech' we as a society are losing our ability to be self sufficient or at least 'practical' and somewhat independent souls... nothing is more satisfying than eating a fresh tomato off the vine, or gathering an egg from a chicken that you've tended from chickhood or even inhaling the deep earthy scents after a warm summer rain..... enjoy